To establish a communication session with a wireless access network, a user typically operates a wireless communication device to communicate in a wireless protocol with a wireless access node. The wireless access node then exchanges the user communications with other systems of the wireless access network, such as gateways, service nodes, and mobile switching centers, to ultimately provide a communication service, such as telephony voice communications or data access over the Internet.
However, in order to establish the communication session with the wireless network, the wireless communication device is typically required to first successfully register with the network. Device registration to establish a communication session often involves the wireless network receiving registration data from the wireless communication device attempting to register, such as device and user identifiers associated with the device and/or its user. In order to grant or deny the session request, a communication system in the wireless network accesses a database system, such as a home location register (HLR) or visitor location register (VLR), to retrieve user and device identifiers corresponding to the wireless communication device attempting to register. Typically, the database contains a matched set of device and user identifiers, such as an electronic serial number (ESN) or mobile equipment identifier (MEID) to identify the device, correlated with a mobile station identifier (MSID) associated with the user. If the user and device identifiers provided by the wireless communication device are valid and match the information in the wireless network database, the device is granted access to the wireless network and the communication session is established. However, if the wireless communication device provides an invalid user identifier that does not match the device identifier, the information in the wireless network database will not match and the communication session request is denied.
Functions related to device management are typically handled by a device management client application installed on the wireless communication device. The device management client communicates with a device management system typically located in back-office systems of a wireless communication network to provide various services, such as device provisioning, activation, configuration, software upgrades, and fault management. Critical parameters are typically passed from the device management system to the wireless communication device to support these functions using over-the-air (OTA) device management protocols, such as open mobile alliance device management (OMA-DM) or over-the-air service provisioning (OTASP). However, in order to receive OTA device management, the wireless communication device typically needs to be able to successfully register with the wireless communication network to establish a data session with the device management system.